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Gospel – a very popular Christian religious music all over the world is being more popular nowadays. Gospel is one of the great music available on earth Gospel is great because first it is too sweet and another, it is made for worshiping the god. Gospel music is created with heart and can feel you the heaven. It makes the environment religious by combining great singers, musicians, and instruments the gospel singers sing their prayers to the god and the gospel musician’s plays music for that prayers. This article introduces you gospel singers, and provides details about some popular gospel singers.

The gospel singers are one who plays a vital role in worshiping the god by the gospel prayers. They sing prayers of their own natural voice that can make you feel like paradise. There will be a group of people who combine at one place and sing the natural song which are said to be the gospel song, which are prayers to the god. Gospel Singers are very popular in world due to their prayers.

The first gospel singer was Thomas A. Dorsy (1899-1993). He was not just a singer but also music composer. His famous composition is “There Will Be Pease in the Valley”. He is considered as “Father of Gospel”. He has played a vital role in the development of gospel music.

Another famous singer is Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972).She had been in the language of today’s youth. Having a musical contract with Colombia records in 1950s, Jackson performed in the Ed Sullivan Show. She also got opportunity to perform for Martine Luther King’s funeral in 1968. Mahalia Jackson is also a big name in the industry of gospel music.

Clara Ward (1924-1973), another famous gospel singer who was one of those rape people who had both Flash and Substance. Ward had a direct effect on the career of gospel great Marion Williams [Williams sang with the Ward Singers] and influenced both Little Richard and Aretha Franklin, who noted Ward as her idol.

James Cleveland (1931-1991) was considered as “the king of gospel”. He was a great singer. He has a great impact in the history of the gospel music. There is a big name of him today. People remember him for his great music. Cleveland was a charismatic singer who held the audience in the palm of his heart. This is ironic since his voice, rough and raspy, could not be considered one of great quality. Nonetheless, he mesmerized his audience and brought a standard of excellence to gospel music in general through his organization in 1968 of the Gospel Music Workshop of America, the largest gospel convention in the world.

Edna Gallmon Cooke and Brother Joe May are the singers of 50’s and 60’s.

Daryl Coley, Andrae Crouch and the late Thomas Whitfield are also the names to be taken.

The all singers mentioned above are very popular in the history of gospel music. They all have played a crucial roll in the development of the gospel music.

Watching movies is a social experience. We watch movies with friends, families, colleagues, and with anyone else that is good company. So to enhance this experience, and to make sure that we get the most pleasurable experience from watching movies, we do things to ensure that we go to only the best movies, or those that we tend to enjoy tremendously. And so, the process of choosing movies begins, but where does it start? Everyone used to get all the information from traditional media like magazines or the newspapers. But with the Internet, people are sourcing for movie reviews everywhere.
Now, they can read what the movie critics have to say, read all the reviewers’ opinions, scour through tons of feedback by fans who actually watched the movies, and the best part, they can preview the movies by watching online movie trailers. The Internet has quickly become the most important medium for fans to source for information and communicate. So now, in a very virtual way, we can all share movie experiences with someone halfway across the globe. We see some comments on a movie review site, and we respond to those comments.
After a few visits to movie review sites, you would probably have observed that they all have a few characteristics in common. They update their sites with fresh content, almost on a daily basis. So visitors have a strong incentive to revisit these sites every day. They have intuitive designs that look great, so that visitors have no problem navigating the site and finding whatever they are looking for. They also have very few broken links and videos. Some sites I come across have all the makings of a top-notch movie review site, but when I want to watch the movies, I realized the most of the videos are broken. As you can guess, I never returned to this site ever again.
Having killer content is certainly a good thing, but what exactly is considered killer content? Does having movie trailers with a few sentences and a star rating count as killer content? That is typical of traditional movie reviews, and you can get a ton of such content easily on thousands of websites on the Internet. The better sites take great pains to differentiate themselves from the rest of the sites. The way to do this, is to leave their opinions. These sites don’t just leave reviews that look more like testimonials. They take a stand and speak their minds. If they don’t like it, they say it, and they justify it.
And you know what? Visitors do enjoy visiting sites with valuable opinions. It gives them abundant opportunities to respond to these reviews, and state their own opinions as well. Finally, someone has bothered to speak up and now, they have a new channel to express their own opinions and have the world hearing their “voices”.
Reading these opinions can really be as enjoyable (if not more) as watching the actual movie itself. That’s because there is interaction. Surely, you must have been entertained by some comments that you’ve come across on movie review sites, so much so that they brought a smile to your face and made your day. That’s the effect of a high quality movie review site.

Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

Cinema Paradiso (Paradise Cinema in English) – 4 Stars (Excellent)

In my search for films that are not well known but tell a great story with an excellent presentation, I discovered “Cinema Paradiso” by Italian Director Giuseppe Tornatore.

Tornatore intended the film to be an obituary for traditional movie theaters (like Paradise Cinema) and the movie industry in general, but after the film’s critical acclaim and box-office success, he changed his mind and apparently never publicly mentioned the demise of films again.

Many critics credit Cinema Paradiso with reviving Italy’s movie industry, which would later produce “Mediterraneo” and “Life is Beautiful”. Tornatore deserves even more credit than his directing effort; he also wrote the story and screenplay with some collaboration from Vanna Paoli.

Giuseppe Tornatore joins a very select group of writer/directors who have been able to create great films in a dual role. Most writer/directors fail miserably in their effort. I would elevate Tornatore to the same level as Tim McCanlies in “Secondhand Lions” and Kirk Jones in “Waking Ned Devine”, both excellent pictures. It takes a lot more than gumption to create an excellent film, it also takes enormous talent, heart, sensitivity and maturity.

So just how successful was Cinema Paradiso? Among its 19 wins and 12 nominations for excellence was the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, and Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cinema Paradiso will capture your heart when you see 6-year-old Salvatore “Toto” Di Vita (played by Salvatore Cascio) become captivated by the local cinema in his small, native Sicilian Village. He misses his father, who becomes a World War II victim, and through guile and a high interest level, convinces the cinema projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) to mentor him.

There are three “Totos” in the filmthe younger (Salvatore Cascio), the teenager (Marco Leonardi) and the adult (Jacques Perrin). Perrin is a real-life film producer. Cascio steals every scene he is in with his incredible facial expressions, inquisitive mind and indomitable determination to learn how to be a projectionist.

Along the way, he gets into a lot of trouble. He loses his mother’s trust by spending money he is given to buy bread for the family on an admission fee to see a film at the theater. He cons Alfredo the projectionist into giving him some film that causes a fire in his home and threatens his sister’s life. He causes Alfredo to break his promise to Toto’s mother that he will no longer let Toto into the projectionist’s booth.

Ultimately, the flammable film also causes a fire and destroys the Cinema Paradiso and, in a harrowing act, Toto saves Alfredo’s life but Alfredo loses his sight in the disaster. After the Paradiso is rebuilt as the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (New Paradise Cinema), Toto, who has learned to be a projectionist, is hired as a child to do so because he is the only one in the village who knows how.

The bond between Alfredo as a surrogate father to Toto will only grow deeper when Toto enters his teenage years. He will seek out Alfredo for advice on life when he falls in love with the beautiful Elena (Agnese Nano), who comes from a rich family and enters into a forbidden relationship with Toto.

Alfredo will encourage Toto to leave his village for Rome and never return if he is serious about a career in the movie industry. Toto will eventually grow up to become a famous movie producer in Rome.

Cinema Paradiso starts when Toto learns that his beloved Alfredo has died. Toto has not been back to his village and to visit his mother and sister in 30 years. The question is: Will he return for the funeral? After reliving his life in flashbacks during a sleepless night, he boards a plane home to find himself again. The total story is too good to reveal much more here.

Cinema Paradiso is all about relationships. The relationship of a mother to her son, of a surrogate father to a son, of a boy to a girl, of a young romance, of a village’s citizens to its theater, and of intergenerational gatherings among the villagers.

The release of Cinema Paradiso in 1988 proves the adage that if success was easy every film would achieve critical acclaim and would be a box-office smash. The original version released in Italy was 155 minutes (2 hours, 35 minutes) and had a poor response. After shortening the film to 123 minutes (2 hours, 3 minutes), it became an instant success.

I saw the 123-minute version that was released in the United States and was disappointed that there was no indication of what ultimately happened in Toto’s relationship with Elena. I have since learned that Director Giuseppe Tornatore released a 173-minute version (2 hours, 53 minutes) in 2002 that contains exactly what I wanted to see. Find and watch the longer version if you can, it just adds to an already excellent film.

2008 was the year of inane comedies and theme oriented movies. Quality was appreciated and slapstick humor were digested without a burp. On one hand, we had the inane, slapstick comedies like Golmaal Returns and Singh is Kinng as big hits, there were also few surprises in the form of Aamir, Mumbai Meri Jaan and A Wednesday. This triumvirate of theme based movies, based on terror acts and bomb blasts were high on quality and appreciated by both the critics and the masses. A Wednesday particularly stood out for its engaging dialogues and script sense. Towards the end of the year, the two Khans dominated the Bollywood scene. While Shahrukh Khan scored with Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Aamir Khan’s Ghajini became the biggest hit of the year, raking in as much as whopping Rs. 33 crores world wide in the first day itself. At the point of writing, Ghajini is still riding very strongly and hopes to reach the magical figure of Rs. 100 crores in three weeks.

Among the guys, the year did not belong to one particular actor like it did for Akshay Kumar in 2007. The biggies Akshay Kumar(Singh is Kinng), Shahrukh Khan(Rab Ne), Hrithik Roshan(Jodhaa Akbar), Saif Ali Khan(Race) and Aamir Khan(Ghajini) had all one hit each. Oops, one big name is missing. Ah! there you are: Salman Khan. Salman had a bad year professionally. Two of his movies, God Tussi Great Ho and Yuvvraaj, flopped miserably at the box office.

Among the veterans, Naseeruddin Shah had a good year with two big hits, A Wednesday and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. Amitabh Bachchan did not have a good 2008 with God Tussi Great Ho, Bhootnath and the Last Lear not doing well. The only saving grace was an average Sarkar Raj. But his box office status is unfazed. Son Abhishek Bachchan had a mega flop in the form of Drona and a semi hit in the form of Dostana. John Abraham also had Dostana to his credit while Emran Hashmi was safe and secure with Jannat doing well. Ajay Devgan had a disastrous directorial debut U,Me aur Hum in which he acted. Fortunately, he had one hit Golmaal Returns to his credit. Shreyas Talpade had two hits in the form of Golmaal Returns and Welcome to Sajjanpur. Shahid Kapur had to be content with an above average Kismet Konnection.

Among the girls, perhaps no one suffered so much professionally as Priyanka Chopra. In the same vein, we can say perhaps no one benefited as much in 2008 as Priyanka Chopra. Priyanka Chopra starred in four of the worst flops of 2008: Love Story 2050, Drona, God Tussi Great Ho and Chamku. However a strong performance oriented role in Fashion, turned the tide for heels. Following close on the heels of Fashion, was Dostana. Priyanka Chopra had an average year in 2008. Kareena Kapoor looked hot and sexy in 2008, but her size zero figure could not save Tashan from being the worst film of 2008. Kareena Kapoor was able to salvage some glory in Golmaal Returns. Minissha Lamba donned a sexy avatar which did not help Kidnap at all. However, she achieved some solace in Bachna Ae Haseeno. Deepika Padukone had one hit, as well in the form of Bachna Ae Haseeno. Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel, both flopped again this year with their only film Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic losing out. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan had a hit in Jodhaa Akbar while Katrina Kaif scored in Race and Singh is Kinng. Her other movie Yuvvraaj sank without a trace. Vidya Balan had a semi hit in Kismet Konnection. Bipasha Basu, arguably, the sexiest actress of 2008, is the only actress with 100 percent success rate. The oomphilicious Bipasha Basu, sexy and sassy had two hits, Race and Bachna Ae Haseeno to her credit.

There were two South Indian beauties who appeared in Bollywood, one in a changed avatar and the other making a fresh appearance. Genelia D’Souza who had previously starred in Masti, years ago, starred in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, the youth hit, as a teeny bopper. Her fantastic performance and cute looks earned her a legion of fans. Asin, another southern sensation debuted in the biggest Bollywood hit of 2008, Ghajini. Asin’s performance is being widely appreciated. The other list of female newcomers in Bollywood include: Anushka Sharma(Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi), Sonal Chauhan(Jannat) and Adah Sharma(1920).

Among the guys making debut in Bollywood, Imran Khan, nephew of Aamir Khan had a fantastic debut in one of the biggest hits of 2008, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. However he couldn’t follow it up with his second movie Kidnap biting the dust. Another new comer, Harman Baweja, Priyanka Chopra’s boyfriend, starred in one of the worst films of 2008, Love Story 2050. Incidentally both Jaane Tu and Lovestory 2050, released on the same day. Rajneesh Duggal debuted in 1920 while Mithun Chakraborthy’s son Mimmoh had a pathetic flop in the form of Jimmy, as his debut film. Here’s hoping 2009 sees better movies, better performances and better surprises!

Everyone knows about the Academy Awards that are given for movies every year. It has become a major deal for celebrities, as well as for the average person. For celebrities, you have it made if you walk the red carpet at the Oscars, and you are truly considered a great actor if you win the award for best actor or best actress. The history of the Oscars is quite interesting, and it is truly exciting to learn about something so important in the entertainment industry.
Eighty years ago saw the first Academy Award ceremonies. It was created to celebrate great acting talent among movie actors. At first, all the actors were put together into one category, whether they had a supporting role or not. Later on, after complaints from organizations such as the Screen Actors Guild, the awards for best supporting actor and best supporting actress were created.
Also in the first years, actors and actresses were considered for best actor or best actress for all their movies combined. But, this grew too confusing so it changed to the way it is today, where each actor is only nominated for one film per year. An American actor was only considered for awards at first as well, but of course, that has changed now.
With the Academy Awards having gone on for such a long time, you might think that there have been a lot of repeat winners for best actor. However, this occurrence has actually been quite rare. Movie actors who have won more than one statue encompass such names as: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Tom Hanks, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Cooper and Dustin Hoffman. Nearly every actor aspires to win an Oscar at some point.
Usually, this prestigious award is only given to dramatic, character actor performances. Comedies are usually over-looked when it comes to handing out the acting awards, as are young actors. In more recent years, the category of “animated picture” has been added, and they are usually light-hearted films, but other than for special effects, film editing or the music, these are usually not numbered among the movies for nominated actors.
Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule. The host of the academy awards is usually somewhat of a comedic professional. Jokes are made throughout the night about the actors and actresses, and depending on the host, political jokes are made as well.
It is really nice to see that there is a way to celebrate movie actors and their talent. This is exactly what the Oscars show does. Usually, anyone who wins the best actor or best actress award is a really good actor, and deserves to be recognized.
It is pretty amazing that something that started so small has grown in to the large production that it is today. It is rare that people get the recognition that they deserve, yet the Oscars offer that chance. Hooray for Hollywood!